The bus pulled up in front of a large brick building and stopped. Everyone got out and walked up to the front door. Inside, March left the men with a smile and reported to the personnel man in charge of receiving new officers assigned to the school. In another half hour he found himself in his quarters in a building some way up the hill above the main buildings of the base. Here the school itself was situated, with its buildings for classrooms, barracks for enlisted men, and quarters for officers without wives. Married officers were allowed to live in New London with their families and commute daily to the school.
March’s room was small but comfortable, and he was neatly settled in it in a short while. His time in the Navy had taught him already to travel light, with only the necessary belongings, and to settle himself quickly. He was at home and comfortable by the time he reported to the officers’ mess for dinner.
There he met other young officers who also lived at the school, and a few of the instructors. The latter were older men, full of years and wisdom in the submarine service, every one of whom would much rather have been on active duty hunting down Jap or Nazi ships on the oceans of the world. But they were too valuable in the great task of training the hundreds of new officers needed for the subs coming off the ways of the shipyards. Here in New London they could pass on to the younger men like March Anson a portion of their knowledge of pigboats.
March felt, during dinner, the quiet good-fellowship of these men. On the Plymouth the officers with whom he ate and talked and played were pleasant and agreeable fellows, but there had been all types there—the quiet ones, the back-slappers, the life-of-the-party men with practical jokes and loud guffaws, the grimly serious officers, and everything in between. But here the men were more alike.
“Not that they’re all the same,” he told himself, as he looked around the table. “McIntosh here next to me is quite different in most ways from that Lieutenant Curtin across the table, for instance, but they have something in common. Something similar in their personalities, I suppose. They’re sociable, but in a quiet way. They’re serious, but not without a sense of humor.”
March did not realize that he was describing himself when he thought of the other officers in this way. But he might have known that this question of personality was one of the most important in considering men who volunteered for submarine service.
No man in the Navy was ever assigned to sub work without his request. It was an entirely volunteer service, but there were always far more applications, among both officers and enlisted men, than could be accepted. So it was possible for the Bureau of Navy Personnel to keep its standards very high in selecting men for the pigboat branch.
When a man already in the Navy was recommended by his commanding officer for assignment to the sub school at New London, as March had been, this did not mean that the recommendation was accepted just like that. The Bureau looked over the man’s record with the greatest care. And just bravery such as March had displayed was not enough, even though it counted strongly in his favor. What they looked for in the “Diving Navy” was the kind of man who was brave, cool under fire, far above the average intelligence, with the ability to get along well with other people under all circumstances, and the kind of nerves that didn’t crack or even show strain under the greatest danger, the worst crowding, or seemingly fatal situations.
As March thought of this, he swelled with pride to think he had been chosen for the submarine school.
“But that’s just the beginning,” he told himself. “I feel pretty darned good to know that I’ve got this far, but they’re going to watch me like a hawk every moment I’m here. I think I can pass all the tough physical tests okay, because I’m in good shape. The studies are hard but if I work enough maybe I can handle them. But how will I act the first time I’m in a submerging sub? How will I react to a crash dive? They’ll be watching me. And even if I get through the school I’m still not a submariner. Why, on my first real trip or two my commanding officer can transfer me back to surface ships just by saying the word!”